A Glimpse into a Mixed Ethnic Elementary School in Jaffa, Israel

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A Glimpse into a Mixed Ethnic
Elementary School in Jaffa, Israel
Dr. Tamar Margalit Center of Critical Pedagogy,
Kibbutzim College of Education April, 2008
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Outline

• Arab and Jewish Segregation in Schools
• Jaffa and the Neighborhood
• The Weitzman School
• Dilemmas at the School
• Trend for Change
• Critical Pedagogy
• Projects at the School
• Conclusions

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Arab and Jewish Segregation in Schools


Residential Segregation
Social Segregation
() Even in mixed-populated cities, the
schools are segregated.
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Arab and Jewish Segregation in Schools

• 20 of Israeli citizens are Arab citizens

• Segregated educational systems

• Jewish-Arab conflict

Inequality

• Budgets

• Gaps in scholastic achievements

• Preconceived attitudes, fear and animosity

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Jaffa

• A part of Tel Aviv metropolis
• Tel Aviv-Jaffa population 371,400
• Jaffa population 45,000
• Jews and Arabs (Muslims and Christians)
• Jews 30,000 Arabs 15,000 (third are
  Christians)
• Low socio-economic status
• Historical significance (an ancient port city)
• Gentrification

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Weitzman School

• Israeli - Jewish state school.
• 316 children (Pre-school 6th grade).
• 5050 Arab to Jewish children ratio.
• Arab include Christians and Muslims.
• Marginalized community.

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Dilemmas at School

Religious holidays
Culture and heritage
Identity
Language
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Equality
Violence
Low scholastic achievements
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Find the Differences - Signs on the Schools
Main Buildings

• Weitzman School

• Lev-Jaffa (Arab) School

Hebrew only Hebrew, Arabic, English
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Trend for Change An Experimental Plan
Together and Alone
Previous Change
Language Hebrew Hebrew and Arabic
Culture and Heritage Jewish Jewish, Muslim Christian
Teachers Jew Jew and Arab teachers together
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Critical Pedagogy Principles and Implementation
From To
Frontal teaching Cooperative learning, Empowerment
Passive learning, Banking education Dialogue, relevance, Problem posing
Hidden messages in textbooks Questions of Social Justice and Peace Education, Problematization
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A militaristic example from a textbook (5th
grade, arithmetic fractions)
In a family there are 4 children Neta is a
soldier and Ival, Anat and Yuval are pupils. The
parents prepared a cake for the soldiers
vacation, and gave the children instructions
Divide the cake between all of you, so that the
pupils will get equal pieces, and the soldiers
piece will be bigger than the others. Suggest
how to divide the cake. Decide and write down how
much of the cake each child will get.
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Projects at Schoolby Student Teachers from the
Center of Critical Pedagogy

• Principles
• Arab and Jewish student teachers work together
• Multi-aged groups
• Children select their projects

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Projects at School

• The Projects
• Bilingual School magazine
• School Design
• I am from Jaffa
• Childrens Rights

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Friendships(From the Weitzman school magazine)
Achmed There is one boy in the class, his name
is Eliraz. He and I are almost like brothers.
Cristin My two friends, Lina and Cristina, and
I belong to different religions. Despite this,
our friendship is
wonderful. I believe that if you want to feel
belonging, religious issues dont matter, what
you really feel is in your heart.
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We are all children of life Translation from a
painting by children from Weitzman School,
Jaffa, 2008

• Thank You